This tool explains the different types of abuse in relationships.
Click on each section of the Power & Control Wheel to learn more about ways a perpetrator might use power and control in a relationship.
This can include... putting someone down, making them feel bad about themselves, calling them names, making them think they're crazy, playing mind games, humiliating them, making them feel guilty.
This can include...making them feel guilty about the children, using the children to relay messages, using visitation to harass them, threatening to take the children away.
This can include...controlling what they do, who they see and talk to, what they read, where they go, limiting them outside involvement, using jealously to justify actions.
This can include...preventing them from getting or keeping a job, making then ask for money, giving them an allowance, taking their money, not letting them know about or have access to family income.
This can include...making them afraid by using looks, actions, gestures, smashing things, destroying their property, abusing pets, displaying weapons.
This can include...making and/ or carrying out threats to do something to hurt them, threatening to leave them, to commit suicide, to report them to welfare, making them drop charges, making them do illegal things.
This can include...making light of the abuse and not taking their concerns about it seriously, saying the abuse didn’t happen, shifting responsibility for abusive behavior, saying they caused it.
This can include...treating them like a servant, making all the big decisions, acting like the “master of the castle”, being the one to define men’s and women’s roles.
This can include...blowing up their phone, going through text messages, checking and/or deleting emails, using GPS to monitor their moves.
